Diamond City Hearts
by Fever Dream
Summary: Nick Valentine isn't fond of cases tracking down cheating spouses. When his new partner, Nora, persuades him to break his rule and investigate the affairs of a philandering chem dealer, crimes start piling up like cars in a highway collision and secrets unravel that will forever change the partnership at the Valentine Detective Agency.
1. Marital Cases

From the way Ellie hustled into my office and fussed with the crooked blinds, I could tell our latest visitor was going to be the sort you handle with kid gloves.

For six long years as receptionist at the agency, Ellie has waged war on those blinds every time some Very Important So-and-So has come in for a consultation. On every occasion, she's suffered the ignominy of defeat. At this point, her struggles are more of an advance warning system than anything else and she's practically a modern-day Paul Revere, ringing her little bell. I don't tell her this, of course. I don't think she'd appreciate the sentiment.

The grand and imposing Somebody in question was a woman of about 50 or thereabouts, wearing a tan suit that said business and an expression that said she was used to getting her way. As it was, I already had cases begging for my attention like half-starved mutts, so I wasn't inclined to go out of my way to get her on the hook, especially if she was the sort who liked to play high-and-mighty with the lowly Synth detective.

I'd been in Diamond City long enough to know the type. They descended from their perch in the Boxes every so often to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi, but they never let you forget that you were slumming it and that if they had their way, we'd be out rotting in the Fens with the ghouls and the mercs and all the other Goodneighbour castaways.

The lady pursed her lips and gave me an incredulous look. "You're Nick Valentine?"

I suppose she'd missed the sign out front, the big one with flashing neon letters.

"None other. Is this the part where we introduce ourselves?"

"Margery Gaines."

She kept staring at me, ignoring my attempt at a handshake. Humans have a way of forgetting standard politeness protocols when they're confronted with a genuine Synth in their nice, cozy haven of Diamond City.

Mind you, I'm a peculiar-looking fellow on the best of days, what with this rubber mug and my titanium frame showing through where the skin wore down or got nicked with bullets. Luckily, I'm a snappy dresser.

"Well, Ms. Gaines, what brings you to my office? It doesn't take a sleuth's powers of deduction to see you don't often visit Diamond City Market."

"It's Mrs. Gaines," she said, a little too quickly, and from the way her body bristled, I could tell her problem was marital in origin.

If there's one kind of case I can't stand, it's affairs of the heart. Give me a burglary or missing-persons, even a homicide, done cold and clean – I can work through that stuff and usually wind up doing a little good. When romance comes into the picture, that's when things get messy and I want to get the hell out.

"Mrs. Gaines," I repeated, feeling a touch of annoyance. "Now shall we cut to the chase? Not that I'm not enjoying the pleasantries and all."

"It's a confidential matter. You must promise your utmost discretion."

"Of course, of course." I gestured to the chair. "Why don't you take a seat and tell me a little more about Mr. Gaines, hm?"

Her eyes widened, her forehead furrowing. "I didn't say -"

"You didn't have to. It's written all over your face. Now what's the man done to upset you?"

"He's been traipsing off to Goodn-n-neigh-" Her lip trembled and tears came gushing out of her baby blues, which were not so cold and judgmental now.

For the first time since she'd come pushing through my office door, I felt sorry for her. Chronic sympathy is one of my worst afflictions and I've always been a particular sucker for crying dames. It's a quirk in my programming I'm certain the Institute wasn't aiming for when they cobbled me together out of scrap metal and Wonderglue.

"Shhh, it's alright. Take your time."

I handed her my cleanest handkerchief. It's embroidered with the initials 'NV' and a little pink heart with an arrow through it – a nice touch, if I say so myself. The first thing one learns in the detective racket: always keep a freshly laundered hankie in one's consulting desk, even if you don't have tear ducts. Not a day goes by that someone isn't sitting at my desk, sniffling into one of those cotton rags, though sometimes it's Ellie getting a no-good beau out of her system.

Mrs. Gaines accepted the hankie, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. It took a moment for her to reclaim her composure.

"My husband, Gregory, makes trips throughout the Commonwealth for his enterprise – accompanied by his bodyguards, of course. He says he's negotiating contracts for his chems business and until recently, I've had no reason to inquire further. He's very successful and he doesn't take well to others poking their noses into his affairs, even if they're part investors, as I am."

I nodded, wondering about the nature of Mr. Gaines' business. The chem trade was as unsavoury as it got, even if the fellow in question were sticking to the relatively 'clean' side of the industry – stims, Radaway, Rad-X, Med-X – the stuff that the doctors needed to patch folks up when they got into rough scrapes or were looking to change their old face for something a little fresher.

Chances were, if Gaines was trading throughout the Commonwealth, he'd been dipping his toe into murkier waters. Hardcore chems, the stuff that could make you cough up blood into your morning glass of brahmin milk or turn you into the kind of nutbar who skins his best pal to make a new suit of clothes. If so, we weren't just talking bodyguards here, we were talking a personal army at his beck-and-call, ushering him from one irradiated hellhole to another, the sort of toughs who thought taking on your typical raider gang was a lazy Sunday. To me, that said Gunners, loud and clear.

"One evening, I was helping Gregory out by taking his suit out to the cleaners for a wash. I look in the breast pocket of his coat and I find this note."

She handed me the note and I scanned my visual receptors down the page. The handwriting was nicer than most you see in the Commonwealth, where people haven't found much time to devote to their penmanship.

 _To my Diamond City Gem,_

 _It's been so long since you came by the Third Rail to see little old me. It's been like a nuclear winter without your loving arms around me._

 _Tell wifey you've got some big deal in the works and we can take a little vacation, huh? You give me the sign and I'll be at in Room 166 at the Rex, waiting just for you, hot stuff. I'll make sure to wear that necklace you bought me...and once you arrive, nothing else._

 _Don't forget to bring those special goodies of yours so we can trip the light fantastic._

 _Xoxo,_

 _Your Atom Bomb Baby_

It was pretty damn incriminating. I could see why the 'wifey' in question was calling in the big guns to investigate.

"Mind if I hold onto this?" I asked her.

"Of course," Mrs. Gaines said. "It's disgusting, is what it is. It shows Gregory has been consorting with the lowest sort of person in the most repugnant of places."

"Goodneighbour is a rough-and-tumble neighbourhood," I conceded. "For some folks, that's part of its charm. I wouldn't advise you go there yourself."

A snooty type like her wouldn't last five minutes in that genteel company before someone would've stuck a knife in her and hustled off with her caps, her watch and her fillings. I had to give her credit for taking this job to the professionals - even if it meant it wound up on my already full plate and I wasn't so enthusiastic about delving into matters of the heart.

"You know the guy's a bad egg," I said. "You sure you want to dig around in this? It might be better just to toss the ingrate out on his ear and wash your hands of him."

"It isn't so simple," she said. "There's money to be considered. My investment and... other funds. If I have to leave, I'm not going to do it empty-handed. I need...leverage."

That's the thing with these marital jobs. You peel back the layers of hurt and betrayal and at the core, it's always about caps. Sometimes the caps are supposed to be a hard-won vengeance for all the years of misspent fidelity and sometimes they soothe wounded pride, but in the end, they're just caps. I've got memories of a time when you could find them littering the gutters, dented and forgotten, and people would've thought you were touched in the head to be hoarding the damn things. Now, they're the be-and-end-all and you see folks kill for them or starve in the gutter for want of them. It's a hell of a world, is all I can say.

The lady must've caught the look of distaste crossing my face, because she frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. "Are you going to take the job or not? I pay well, Mr. Valentine, and I always keep my promises."

"No question, you do, Mrs. Gaines. I'm not doubting that. It's just I've got a backlog of cases right now and a few of those are disappearances. High-priority stuff."

I was exaggerating just a touch on that last point. Most of the cases in my backlog were all sewn up by now, but there were still a few where questions lingered or a trail had gone colder than a January in Nantucket. If another sort of case had walked through my front door, I'd have been chomping at the bit.

"I'll pay you double your usual rate," Mrs. Gaines said.

"Now, look, I'm not trying to put a fix on you for caps. I take my given rate, plus expenses incurred in the course of the investigation. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not trying to gouge you. But I do have other matters on the go and I need to clear this case with my partner."

She looked startled. "A partner? You didn't say anything about a partner."

"Well, no, Nora's not on the sign yet. She's been working with me on a consulting basis. Best damn partner I've ever had. You got nothing to worry about with her, Mrs. Gaines. She's the soul of discretion."

"Hmph. Alright. I suppose I'll have to...trust your judgement on this matter." The lady rose from her chair, holding the borrowed handkerchief between thumb and forefinger. It was clear she didn't know what to do with it.

"Keep it." I had the gut feeling she'd be crying more tears before this business was through. "Where can I contact you, Mrs. Gaines? I'll need to reach you to follow up about the case."

"I'm in the penthouse apartment of the Green Diamond Highrise. If I'm not in, you can leave a Holotape message with my butler, Hadfield."

Mrs. Gaines drew her dog-fur stole around her, squared her shoulders and marched out the door with as much dignity as she could muster, even though I could tell her ego had been punctured by the mere fact of talking to me like I was a flesh-and-blood person. Some folks got over the Synth thing pretty quick. Some people never did. I had a feeling this lady fell into the latter camp.


	2. Partner Enters, Stage Left

Nora strolled into the office an hour later and tossed her hat onto the coat rack. It spun 'round on the top prong for a second, then fell at a jaunty angle against my beat-up trench.

The dame always had a knack for making an entrance, even from our first encounter, when she busted me out of a grimy cell and one heck of a sticky situation with Skinny Malone and his latest moll. Since then, we'd been thick as thieves, solving crimes, busting heads and cracking terminals, when we weren't cracking our knuckles and puzzling over the question of her son, Shaun, and the big bad Institute.

"Top o' the morning to you, Nick," Nora pressed two fingers to her temple and saluted, a wiseacre move if ever I saw one. "How's business, partner?"

"It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and I'm thinking of taking to the bottle."

In lieu of a watch, Nora glanced at her Pipboy. I'd thought she was joking, but it occurred to me that maybe she really had gone to the dogs last night. I'd turned in early, leaving her in the Dugout with Cait and MacCready. In retrospect, I couldn't think of two worse people to entrust with a grieving widow coping with her son's defection to the very people who'd put his dad on ice.

Shaun ran the show at the Institute now and it was eating Nora up something awful. Overall, she'd been handling the situation better than most, but there were bound to be lapses in judgement, pains a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to lean on weren't going to salve. I knew the feeling.

"Business is bad?" Nora slumped into the chair Mrs. Gaines had occupied but a few hours before. "Ellie says we had a new case come through the door. The woman sounded like a bit of a human steamroller from the description I got."

"Yeah. That's accurate enough." I heaved a sigh and fumbled with the nearest pack of cigarettes, in case she was in any doubt about my state of mind. I drew out a stick and clenched it between my lips. "You mind?"

"Go ahead." Nora gave me the indulgent smile of one who doesn't partake.

Old Nick was a nicotine addict, through and through, and he passed the compulsion on to me in my programming. It was one thing I could've done without, but hell, if it didn't help settle my mind when I was mulling over a case.

I lit up using the heat from one mech-finger. Sucking down the fumes calmed me like nothing else and suddenly, I felt up to revisiting the sorry tale of Missus and Mister Grimes.

Nora listened with her chin resting on her hand, nodding and grimacing at the right intervals. When she'd heard me out, she said, "I'm thinking there'll be Gunners involved in this. Either that or Triggermen. Are you game for that?"

"The idea occurred to me too. You know I'm not one to shy away from a fight, though, not if some good can be done. Of course, the question is, how much good can we accomplish here? This isn't like you and me taking down Eddie Winter. I don't see the angle here, beyond a little heartache, and there's more than enough of that to go around here in the Commonwealth."

Nora looked pensive. "Gaines is peddling chems, though, right? He sounds like a Grade-A creep to me. Think of the networks he's got, the product he's manufacturing, how many dealers he's selling to. If we figured out a way to put a freeze on his assets – maybe through an embittered ex-wife – we could take tons of chems off the market."

She had a point. The dame had been a lawyer in another life and she had a good mind for the bigger picture. It was one reason I liked having her in my corner.

"I hear you. It could be a win for us. But how long do you think it'd last, before some new pusher sprang up to take his place?"

"I'm not saying it'll be peace in our time or anything," she said. "But it might put a dent in the local raider populations and that's good news for everyone else around here. You know the streets get when the raiders lose their daily dose of Psycho..."

I finished her thoughts. "Chaotic as hell with the in-fighting, then eerily quiet. The kind of quiet that the Minutemen and the Railroad could use right now."

She grinned. "Look at you, taking the words right out of my mouth. One might almost think you were a detective or something."

I shook my head, but I was secretly kind of pleased that she was taking the time to bust my chops. It was better than the ominous silence that fell over her when she started pondering Shaun or the Institute. It'd been a real kick in the head for her when she met her sweet little sonny boy and discovered he was a cold fish with a penchant for slavery and unethical experimentation.

Nora had already cast her lot in with the Railroad, running cloak-and-dagger type missions for those spooks when she wasn't doing the old General routine with the Minutemen. A smart cookie like her, she must've realized she was going to have to choose between her long-lost kid and her ideals at some point. No matter what, it was going to be a bad bargain.

"Very good," I said. "You've got a little repartee in you today. I hope you haven't been dipping into the Mentats."

"Funny," she said. "You know, Valentine, if we're going to swing by the Third Rail for this case of yours, you ought to bring along your resume. I hear they've been auditioning for a new comedian ever since they peeled bits of the last one off the floor."

"Some jobs are too dangerous, even for me."

I stubbed out my smoke and flung on my coat. Reaching up to the highest prong on the coat rack, I flipped Nora her hat.

She caught it and set it on, tugging at the brim 'til it tilted slightly to the right. "We're on the case?"

"We're on the case."

On the way out of Diamond City, we left our regards with Hadfield, Mrs. Gaines' Mr. Handy butler. He was a nice enough sort but with a lot less going on his processor unit than Coddington, Nora's robot pal.

From there, it was just a hop, skip and a jump to the friendly environs of Goodneighbour, if you didn't count a firefight or two in your travel time.

"You alright, Nick?" Nora gripped my shoulder, steadying me after a raider's bullet came too close for comfort.

"Sure thing."

She'd been acting real concerned about me ever since I told her about Eddie Winter and everything the old Nick had gone through. I kept trying to tell her I wasn't made of glass, but she never seemed to listen.

Part of me liked it, truth be told. There were a lot of guys who'd pay good caps for a dame like her to smile their way, never mind caring enough to take your every woe on her shoulders. I might be a shambling old bucket of bolts, but old Nick knew a beautiful woman when he saw one, and Nora wasn't lacking in the allure department.

Nick's eye for the ladies was another bad habit he'd passed along, like cigarettes, melancholy and a taste for the hard stuff. Sometimes, I caught myself trading flirtatious remarks without meaning anything by it. It wasn't something I was too fond of. I doubt Jenny Lands had liked it much either, though Nick was a loyal guy when you got down to brass tacks and Jenny was his one and only. I don't have memories of him being guilty of anything beyond a roving eye and enjoying the ego boost of a dame fluttering her lashes in his direction.

Still, me and old Nick, we felt like the lowest scum scraped from the tread of the dirtiest boot in Boston when Eddie Winter and his goons had Jenny murdered to punish his – my - interference. I could still recall every joke, every stolen glance, every careless compliment Nick tossed to a woman who wasn't Jenny, thinking it made him a catch. By God, it made me sick inside. Another reason why I didn't like working lonely hearts cases. Some things hit a little too close to home.

"Alright then," Nora said. "Just stay safe, partner. You mean a lot to me."

All at once, her eyes glimmered, as if damp with tears. She blinked, tilting her face down under the brim of her fedora, and strode ahead as if she couldn't bear to be looked at.

I watched her back, uncertain what to say and even more mixed-up about what to feel. When in doubt, I usually relied on Nick's instincts, and they were shouting at me to go after her and wrap my arms around her. The notion kept playing through my head and it seemed so right, so natural, until I looked down at my mechanical hand, a steel claw. For the first time in a long time, I felt defective.

By the time we reached Goodneighbour, Nora's pace slowed and the sadness that struck her dried up, replaced by her usual deadpan smirk. I should've called her on putting up a front, but, so help me, I felt like I'd been let off the hook. I didn't want to think about the gap between the man I'd been and the machine I'd become. I'm good about keeping handkerchiefs around, but when it comes down to it, a metal shoulder ain't much comfort to cry on.

"Goodneighbour," Nora said. "A case of false advertising if there ever was one."

It wasn't Sanctuary Hills, that was for sure. No white picket fences for miles and if any sprung up, they'd probably be used for impaling folks fool enough to get on Hancock's nerves. The breakfast of champions around these parts was Jet-laced Sugar Bombs, washed down with half a case of Gwinnett Stout.

We strolled into the Third Rail. The ghoul bouncer, Ham, stood stalk-still and gave us the hairy eyeball, like usual. He'd never cottoned onto the idea of trusting regulars and maybe he was right: the barflies always had a shifty-eyed look, like they were hatching a conspiracy over the watered-down drinks and greasy plates of mirelurk cakes that only seemed like a good idea if you were wasted and the clock said 3 AM.

Magnolia swayed behind the mic, purring out another gin-soaked love song. All the while, Whitechapel Charlie whirred along the bar, slinging out drinks with those spidery arms of his. His bowler sat at a jaunty angle on his floating orb of a head.

"Oi. What can I do you for? Drinks? Grub?"

Just like old Charlie to cut straight to the bottom line. "How are you doing, Charlie?"

"I'd be doing better if a couple of rozzers weren't nosing around, putting the screws to my customers."

"Simmer down. You don't want to blow a gasket on my account. We're just here for a friendly chat."

Nora sidled up to the bar. "Bloody Mary for me. Coolant on the rocks for Nick."

I wasn't thirsty, but buying something had a way of making Charlie a better conversationalist.

I perched on a barstool and drew out my pack of Sunlights, shaking a cigarette loose. I clamped it in the side of my mouth and tried to light it with my finger, but for some reason, it just wasn't catching.

Nora spun around, offering a flame from her gold-plated lighter.

I leaned forward to accept the light and she smiled, her face glowing in the firelight. I took a long drag on the cigarette and for a moment, it was like I was breathing her in too, the heady perfume of her enough to cloud out the rest of the room and heat my insides like a furnace.

I stared down at the glass of coolant Charlie plunked in front of me. Maybe I should get my circuitry checked. It'd been a long time since my last tune-up. Could be I was mistaking a malfunction for something...more serious.

Nora turned back to Charlie. "I don't suppose you happen to know a fellow named Gregory Gaines?"

Charlie's eyes bulged, then gave a slight twitch. "The name sounds familiar enough. Plenty of people come here to drink themselves forgetful."

I took a sip of my drink and it quelled the heat flaring in my chest. I felt better. Saner. More like the tired old machine I was. "C'mon, Charlie, let's not beat around the bush, shall we? The longer we draw this out, the longer your customers have to endure a pair of Diamond City investigators snooping around."

Nora leaned back, pillowing her hands behind her head as if she might be inclined to take a nap. "You know, Nick, I like it here. I could lounge around, nursing this one drink all afternoon."

Charlie goggled at her, then peered back at me, clearly aghast. I stifled a grin. This was a chance for a little fun.

"This place is growing on me, too," I said. "Who needs the Dugout when we could spend all our time here? I bet the joint empties out faster than you can say 'God Save the Queen'."

Charlie clanked his spindly arms against the side of the bar."Bloody hell, you scuffers are a pain in me arse."

It didn't seem altogether diplomatic to point out he didn't have an 'arse'. Nora and I exchanged a look, but neither of us came out with the obvious.

He heaved a martyred sigh."What do you want to know? Make it quick, eh."

"We're looking for the scoop on Gregory Gaines: known associates, habits, quirks, anything that sets him apart from the average fella in these parts. First off, have you ever seen him with a companion?"

"Other than those tossers that call 'emselves Gunners? Nah. No totties. Keeps to himself, he does. Odd duck."

"Odd?" Nora said. "In what way?"

Charlie bobbed up and down behind the bar, looking a tad circumspect. At last he came out with it.

"Well, he made me this offer. When I first heard him tell it, I thought he was either taking the mickey or right off his trolley. Barmy or not, though, it's easy money and it meant bugger all to me."

"Sure, sure," I said. "What's the deal?"

"He pays me good caps to change my hat for the day. Does it every time he comes to town. Causes a big bleeding stir around this daft lot for some reason, but it doesn't happen too often. 'Least not as often as I'd favour."

I glanced at Nora and she arched an eyebrow. She was thinking what I was thinking: here was the sign Gaine's paramour had been alluding to in her note. Good old Charlie had just handed it to us on a silver platter.

"Your hat or mine?" she said.

I wasn't surrendering my fedora without a fight, that's for sure.

Since I'd started wearing this get-up, I found it offered two notable benefits: 1) it hid my lack of hair and 2) it cast enough shadow over this ugly mug that people sometimes wouldn't notice the peeling skin or the eyes flicking around like laser points. They saw the hat and the trench coat first, the detective old Nick had taught me to be, and the Synth part of me faded into the background behind that reassuring image.

I opted to make light of it. "Ha, you know me. This thing is practically Wonderglued to my cranium."

Nora didn't look too impressed. "Alright, alright. I know it's important to you. But this is going in the expense report and you are damn well going to buy me a new one."

She took off her fedora and thrust it onto the bar. "Charlie, this is your hat for the day. You should be paying me for the favour."

Charlie plucked up the hat, giving it the once-over. "200 caps."

Nora reacted like he'd slapped her in the face. "You've got to be kidding me. That's highway robbery. This is high style right here. 50 caps."

"150 and you leave off the whinging."

Nora seethed, tossing back the rest of her Bloody Mary. "75, and we leave after this drink."

"You're not wangling me down anymore. As I see it, you need me for whatever harebrained business you're into. It's 150 or nowt."

I stepped into the negotiation. "Make it 100 and I promise we won't darken your door again for a full month. You have my word, Charlie."

Charlie floated in a slow orbit, seeming to ponder this. At last, he threw down his bowler cap and set Nora's fedora atop his spherical head.

"Alright, you got me. You stick to your end of the bargain and I'll stick to mine. Now pay up and naff off, hm?"

I dispensed the rest of the caps, jotting down the cost of the hat and the bribe in our expenses book.

Nora cast a woeful look at her lost fedora and I felt awful sorry for parting her from it. I decided I'd buy her an extra nice one out of my cut of the pay. I'd seen a red one at Fallon's the other day that was just her style.

"Limey bastard," Nora muttered, once we were safely out of earshot. "No appreciation for fashion. I'm surprised my hat managed to fit on his fat head."

"Well, it's a good thing it did. How long do you think it's going to take before Gaines' side-piece picks up on the signal?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Nora said. "Luckily, I anticipated this possibility and made Piper pack us snacks. You'll be happy to learn I also brought plenty of reading material." She reached into her pack and pulled out a collection of rumpled magazines and a tattered copy of the Bugle.

"Looks like we're all ready for a stake-out."


	3. The Gal in Room 166

We hunkered down in the lobby of the Rexford Hotel, trying for unobtrusiveness without making it all the way there. If a Synth PI could blend in Goodneighbour, it was only because the place was a haven for misfits and castaways, people who would've attracted stares, slurs or worse in Diamond City. Here, everyone ignored each other's freakishness by mutual agreement and if it took chems to dull the pain, nobody offered any judgments.

By now, playing the waiting game was second nature to Nora and me. I read through the old Bugle, mostly for the nostalgia of the crime section and the funny papers, while Nora flipped through her copy of Live & Love magazine. On stake-outs, you've got to keep it as natural as you can. Don't look up, shifty-eyed. Don't fidget. Smoking helps. Having good peripheral vision is even better.

Nora bit into a Fancy Lad snack cake, washing it down with a mouthful of Nuka Cherry. She smiled down at the pages of her magazine."Nick, do you know your, uh, manufacture date?"

A hell of a question, that. You'd think I would, but you'd be dead wrong. I remember old Nick's Pre-War life like I actually lived it, but trying to recall my Institute days is like squinting through a glass darkly.

I tugged at my shoe. "Let me check. They might've stamped it on the bottom of my foot."

Nora rolled her eyes. "In other words, no."

"Why do you ask?"

At that, her cheeks flushed. She flicked through the pages of her magazine. "Nothing. Just curious."

"C'mon, now, don't hold out on me. You know I don't like unsolved mysteries."

She glanced up at me, looking shy all of a sudden. "Okay, but you got to promise not to make fun of me."

"When do I ever poke fun at my favourite partner's expense? You've got me all wrong, sweetheart."

Her blush only deepened. She covered her face with her palms and her confession came out as barely a whisper. "I wanted to check your sign."

The first picture that came into my head was the flashing neon sign at the front of the agency. "My sign?"

"You know, your astrological sign. Your horoscope."

"My horoscope? I never figured you believed in that stuff."

Personally, it sounded like a load of hocus pocus to me, but I could see how it might comfort people. Folks found it reassuring to classify things and put them away in neat little boxes. Writ large, it was the same tendency that walled Diamond City safely away from Goodneighbor and separated the humans from the Synths and ghouls.

Nora shrugged. "I don't know that I 'believe'. There was just this article. I thought it'd be fun to look you up. See if what it said was on the money."

"And if it was?"

"Well, I guess I'd have the straight dirt on Nick Valentine, wouldn't I?"

I thought it was funny she'd turn to a magazine to get to know me better. After all, we'd spent months on the road together in every kind of weather, facing all the perils the wasteland could throw our way. Nora knew me better than just about anybody. I figured I had a pretty decent notion of what made her tick too.

"I got to see this for myself." I plucked the magazine out of her hands and turned through the pages

"Nick, it's not worth your time," Nora said. "It's stupid."

I came to the article. The headline at the top of the page read "Are You a Match Made in the Heavens?" in flowery pink cursive. The accompanying illustration showed a cherub sitting on a low-hanging star and aiming an arrow at a hapless couple sitting in a gazebo below.

I glanced up at Nora, putting two and two together. She gazed back at me, stricken, so vulnerable it was about as bad as seeing her bleed.

"Nick..."

I didn't know what to say. It was a case where all the evidence led to a single conclusion, but I just couldn't bring myself to state the obvious. This woman, this whip-smart, gorgeous dame who'd swept into my office and made my life go topsy-turvy in the best sort of way, she'd made the mistake of giving me her human heart.

I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. I wanted to tell her, "I'm a machine, damn it. The guy who's got you so charmed, he died two hundred years ago when his girl got shot and the bombs fell and tore through civilization as easy as through a brown paper bag. What you love now is his shadow on the wall." I wanted to take her face in my hands and make her look at me, really goddamn look, at this busted-up mug and the gaping hole in the side of my neck, the cold metal claw of my hand. Prince Charming, I ain't.

But more than anything, I would've liked to take her hand and tell her she was kind and funny and beautiful in every way that counted. I would've liked to say, "Nora, I feel the same. Might be I have for a long time," and be certain it was true, that all the feelings were mine and not some crazy malfunction or the ghost of old Nick rattling his chains.

I handed the magazine back to Nora, taking care to keep my expression neutral. "Not exactly War and Peace, but I suppose it's fun to think about."

She smiled weakly. "Yeah. Silly stuff, but I loved these old magazines. The textbooks in law school were so deadly dry, it was nice to escape with something brainless."

Nora put on a brave face and I pretended there was nothing wrong, even though I felt like my run-time protocols were all jumbled together, functions colliding like cars on a broken expressway. Could I...love her? If love was a trick this old bot could learn, then I'll be damned if I didn't want her to teach it to me.

Was I capable of making her happy? Fake it 'til you make it seemed to work in the detective game, but I wasn't so sure I should play by those rules when it came to starting up a relationship with a dame who'd already been through a hell of a lot of grief.

I was still sitting there, open-mouthed and stupid, when a strange woman walked into the lobby and provided a convenient distraction. She was dressed to kill, or at least to maim, in a clingy dress, opera gloves and veiled hat that hid her face. The lady moseyed across the lounge, taking her sweet time so everyone could take in her ensemble and the sway of her hips. If this was Gaines' mistress, I had a notion she was going to be a handful.

"Room 166," the lady said to the desk clerk. Her voice was husky, tinged with cigarettes, afternoon whiskey and hope gone to tatters. She collected her room key and climbed the stairs.

Nora gave me a knowing look, then clicked on her Holotape recorder and followed the woman at a leisurely stroll. I took the other set of stairs, in case our quarry got wise and tried to give us the slip. We met again near Room 166.

Nora leaned against the dingy wall in a posture of exaggerated ease. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Life is full of funny coincidences, ain't it?" I kept my voice low to avoid tipping off the mark.

We stepped up to Room 166. I rapped on the door with the tarnished brass knocker.

My audio-receptors heard scuffling inside the suite. Was the lady tidying up or going for a gun? I'd received all kinds of receptions making house calls like this, from surprising hospitality to a shotgun pressed up against my forehead.

The door opened, and the woman in the veiled hat stood before us.

Her veil was drawn back now, revealing a face that made for a stark contrast to her fancy clothes. Her skin was pale green, as withered and rutted as the wasteland geography. A lipless cadaver's mouth stretched over rotten corn kernel teeth. Where she'd once had a nose, there was just a gaping sinus cavity, skin and cartilage having fallen away long ago. It hadn't occurred to me that Gaines' mistress would be a ghoul.

The lady ghoul glared at us, folding her arms over her chest."Who in the hell are you?"

"Mr. Gaines sent us, ma'am," Nora said, doing her best impression of a Gunner. "There's been an incident with a customer and he's concerned about your welfare. He tasked my associate and myself with ensuring your safety until he gives the all-clear."

On principle, I wasn't fond of lying, but it could be a useful way of avoiding more violent confrontations. In this case, we needed to preserve our client's anonymity too, so I was willing to play along.

"You're with the Gunners?" The ghoul looked a little less sure of herself. "I've never seen you before."

"Sergeant North," Nora said, by way of false introduction. "My associate and I are new to this detail."

The ghoul looked at me. "What's the deal with the robot?"

I blunted my tone so that it sounded like that of your typical combat bot. "Assaultron Model NV36 reporting for service, ma'am. Protection protocols commencing."

I heard a faint hitch in Nora's breathing and for a second, I wondered if she was going to crack up and give away the game.

"He's one of the new Assaultron prototypes," she explained. "Lighter weaponry than the usual models, but more than enough to take out any raiders that get uppity."

The ghoul looked skeptical. "I see. I've never seen any Assaultron that looked like that."

"No, you wouldn't have. He's a prototype currently undergoing field tests," Nora said. "Now, for your security, I suggest we get out of the hallway. Your room is more defensible."

The ghoul let us in, probably against her better judgment, and Nora locked and chained the door.

The hotel room told a story all on its own: there were chems on the dresser, along with a few toys that were almost certainly not intended for children. Music wafted up from a nearby radio set to the Diamond City station. A bottle of wine sat on the table with two empty glasses beside it.

"Have you observed anything strange while going through your daily routines?"

The ghoul curled up on the chaise longue and poured wine into one of the glasses. "Are you kidding? This is Goodneighbour, honey. Everything - and everyone - is strange here."

Nora sat on the sofa, maintaining the rigid soldier's posture one expected from a Gunner. I would've preferred to sit beside her and maybe light up a cigarette while I was at it, but Assaultron units weren't known for taking it easy or enjoying a good smoke now and then. Instead, I stood with my elbows bent at stiff angles and tried to look capable of melting things with my eyes, which was even less fun than it sounds.

"Did Greg give you a message for me?" the ghoul asked coyly. Her fingers toyed with a rhinestone necklace that spelled out "Delilah" - her name, most likely. It was fitting to the circumstances.

"No, ma'am," Nora shifted in her seat, as if the question made her uncomfortable, although I was willing bet she was actually enjoying herself. If her run as the Silver Shroud had taught me anything, it was that she savoured a little make-believe. "I would imagine that our presence is the message. Mr. Gaines diverted bodyguards from his own force to ensure you were safe."

That piece of flattery made Delilah warm right up. Soon, she was offering Nora a drink and pouring her heart out about Gaines and the troublesome wife who was keeping them apart.

"He's too good for that old battleaxe," Delilah said. "It's me he wants. I have 200 years' worth of experience between the sheets. What smoothskin can top that?"

I suppose the ghoulfriend had a point there, though I was glad she didn't go into detail.

"That's...a lot of experience," Nora said. I could see her hand brushing over the pocket of her jacket, ensuring the Holotape recorder was getting all of this.

"Greg makes me feel like a real woman again. I mean, I wasn't always..." Delilah gestured to her irradiated body and wasted face, "...like this. I used to be a real head-turner. I even modeled for the cover of La Coiffe, back when I had hair. I never thought I'd get over the change and then Greg came into the picture and showed me I could keep going. Maybe I wasn't gonna be the same as I was, but life didn't end and loving didn't have to either. You know what that's like?"

Nora seemed thoughtful. Her eyes darted over to me as if she might find the answer in my face. All I could do was send encouraging brainwaves from behind my guise of robotic stoicism.

"I do," she said. "I have someone like that."

This only encouraged Delilah in the idea they were bonding."And isn't he worth fighting for?"

Nora paused. "You ought to fight for someone when they're fighting for you too. If all the sacrifices or all the feelings are one side, it's never going to work."

It was good advice for the mistress of a married man, but Nora was breaking character all to hell. It went against all logic, considering how good she was about keeping her cover for the Railroad. If Deacon, her spook mentor, were here, I knew he'd be slapping his forehead and gesturing for her to make a swift exit.

Maybe Nora had compromised character because the woman's story had touched her. Maybe she'd done it because she wanted to talk a troubled person out of a situation that could only end in tears. Either way, I let her play out her scene. For better or worse, Delilah had gained my pity too.

Delilah scowled, her lidless eyes narrowing to dark slits. "What are you talking about? Is that supposed to be some sort of commentary on me? You've got no right to judge."

"It's good you're happier with yourself now," Nora said. "But if we're talking woman-to-woman, I wouldn't put much trust in the promises of a cheater. If he fools around on his wife, there's a good chance that one day, he'll do the same to you. If you build your whole life around him wanting you, that's one going to be one bitter pill to swallow."

"You're his merc. You're not supposed to talk like that."

"Yeah, he pays me to watch his six. It doesn't mean I have to pretend I respect his behaviour." Nora slipped back into her Gunner persona like she'd never left it behind and I have to admit, I was impressed at how natural it was. Either she'd always had a bit of actress in her or Deacon was a better teacher than I gave him credit for.

"It means you ought to keep your trap shut," Delilah said. "I don't need some patronizing bitch giving me a sermon."

"As you say, ma'am."

Nora stood up and peered through the peephole in the door. As she did, she must have pushed a button on her Pipboy because it gave three loud beeps.

"Hm. That's the all-clear," Nora said. "Threat contained. We'll be going now, ma'am. Please be sure to lock the door behind us."

We left Delilah to her wine and her delusions. Once we were clear of the Rexford, Nora took out the Holotape recorder, stopped the tape and ran it again, just to make sure we'd gotten what we'd come for.

The playback caught Delilah's husky voice perfectly. "He's too good for that old battleaxe..."

Nora smiled. "I'm guessing 'the old battleaxe' is going to get herself a divorce. With this evidence, Diamond City Council will make the terms very favourable."

I shook my head. "These marital cases are no good. Even if the clients get what they want, they're never happy."

"Betrayal is never pretty," Nora said. She sighed, and I could tell she was recalling Shaun and the Institute, all the ways she'd been misleading them.

"You're quite the smooth talker," I remarked, hoping to distract her. "How'd you learn to act like a Gunner?"

"Hang around McCready long enough and you'll pick up on some of the mannerisms," she said. "I almost lost it though when you started up with that Assaultron schtick. You should do it more often. I think it'd get us faster service at restaurants."

It was mid-afternoon by the time we reached Diamond City, so we decided to swing by Mrs. Gaines' house, hand off the evidence and close out the case.

A balding man in a white cotton suit opened the door. He had a stubborn jaw and the sort of mean little eyes you wouldn't be surprised to find peering out at you from beneath a rock. From his proprietary attitude, I was guessing this was Mr. Gregory Gaines, chem manufacturer, dealer, lover of ghouls and all-around scumbag.

"What do you want?" Mr. Gaines demanded.

I added bad manners to the list of Mr. Gaines' infractions. "We're here to see Mrs. Gaines."

Mrs. Gaines hurried over. "They're here about the donation. To the Science Centre."

"Donation?" Mr. Gaines furrowed his brow. "You didn't say anything about a donation."

"Well, you were away. I thought it would be nice to do something for the community."

"With my money."

"With our money," she corrected. "As I recall, I did bring a sizable amount of caps to this marriage."

Mr. Gaines grunted and sauntered off to the living room.

"I'll need a little time to get my donation together," Mrs. Gaines said, through a tight smile. "Shall I meet you at your place of business?"

I nodded. "That would be fine, Mrs. Gaines. We'll see you then."

Twenty minutes later, she stormed into my office. Nora, Ellie and I were just hanging around, shooting the breeze, until we heard the door slam open, then slam shut again. Mrs. Gaines appeared in the doorway, her fists clenched at her sides.

"What in God's name were you thinking? I thought I told you to be discreet!"

"Now calm down," I said. "We didn't have any other way of getting in touch with you. If I'd known your husband was in town, we would've thought twice and sent a messenger. As it stands, we weathered it out. No harm, no foul."

"You put me in an incredibly awkward position," Mrs. Gaines said. "I suppose I was a fool to think I could trust a robot to be a reliable investigator."

I was thankful when both Nora and Ellie rose to my defense, but still I waved them down. I'd received worse insults from better people, and I wasn't overly concerned about possessing Mrs. Gaines' good opinion.

I handed her the evidence Nora and I had collected, along with a bill for one day's worth of services, the cost of Nora's hat, the Holotape and the bribe to Whitechapel Charlie.

"If you play the tape, I think you'll find solid evidence that your husband is straying with ghoul named Delilah, who lives in Goodneighbour. He signals he wants a liaison with her by paying the bartender at the Third Rail to change his hat."

Mrs. Gaines' eyes widened. "A ghoul? He's been cheating on me with one of those things?"

"There's no accounting for taste," I said. "Anyway, you have the truth now. You can set things straight."

"Oh, I'll set him straight alright." The lady grit her teeth together, then reached into her purse and set her payment on the desk. "I expect this will do?"

Ellie made quick work of counting through the caps. She gave me the nod, the one that signals a client is all paid up and we can close the books on this one.

"It'll do just fine," she said.

I was glad. I hoped it was the last I'd see of Mrs. Gaines and Mr. Gaines and all this goddamn fuss over ruined love. Unfortunately, it was not the last I'd see of them. Not by a country mile.


	4. Storm Warning

The next week passed without incident. Nora was away on business, although whether she was laying out plans for the Minutemen or conspiring with her friends in the Railroad, she didn't say. Considering the vagueness of her mission, I assumed it was the Railroad.

Her absence left the office quieter than it had been for a while. I listened to the steady whir of the desk fan and the clickety-clack of Ellie's typewriter in the other room. I pored over case files, pondering new angles, but somehow, my thoughts kept circling back to the unresolved tensions between Nora and me. Damn, but I missed her.

I spoke to Ellie from the other room. "Hey, have you noticed anything different?"

She poked her head around the corner. "Different? With what?"

"With, uh, me, I guess."

She nodded. "Actually, I have. You smile more than you used to."

"You think?" I suppose I did. With a good partner at my side, it was easier to look on the bright side of things and leave off brooding about what couldn't be changed.

"And nowadays, when you go out on a case, I can be 99% sure you're coming back," Ellie continued. "There was at time when the odds were more like 50-50, and honestly, I was a nervous wreck."

"Having another investigator around here has its benefits, I suppose."

Ellie smirked. "Huh. Well, you weren't like this when Marty Bullfinch was around, I can tell you that. Must be a little of that Vault 111 magic at work."

I pretended I didn't hear that last smart remark. I lit a cigarette and went back to my paperwork. Ellie returned to sorting through the mail, although she kept shooting me wry looks whenever she passed.

A few minutes later, I heard her laugh.

"How apropos," she murmured. "Hey Nick! You've got a wedding invitation."

I walked out to the main room and stared at her. She handed me a silver-etched card.

I stared at it in disbelief."What in the hell?"

I'd been to funerals, homecomings and several kid's birthday parties (where apparently I was a big hit) but no one had ever thought to invite me to a wedding before.

I opened the card and read it. The text was in both standard English and Binary. Inside, there was picture of Mr. Zwicky and his teaching aide, Edna.

"Well, what do ya know?" I said. "Looks like Zwicky and Edna are going to the altar. Nice to hear some good news for once."

The schoolteacher could be a curmudgeon at times, but he'd always had a soft spot for his robotic helper, and Edna adored him. They might have kept working together for the rest of their lives, never acknowledging their feelings, if Nora hadn't given Edna a little nudge in the right direction. I'd been there, mostly as a witness, but I guess Edna had remembered me too. It was nice to think I'd have a place at their special day.

I wondered if Nora would be there as well. We could go together. There wouldn't be anything too unusual about that, partners keeping each other company at a wedding. It wouldn't have to be a date or anything awkward like that, not if she didn't want it to be.

Ellie's voice broken into my thoughts. "Shall I send an RSVP?"

I nodded. "I'll be there. Here's hoping it's not a fancy dress occasion. My tux is out at the cleaners."

Sleep has never been a concern for me, and those nights I found myself walking the city streets like a man possessed. I passed under arc lights, my shadow writ large on the ground before me, then the darkness swallowed me up again and I listened to the rain falling hard against the tin roofs of the shanties and more gently against the earth.

Old Nick had loved somebody and the loss of that love had stolen his will to live. He'd passed all his fears onto me, who'd never been in love, who carried his life around inside me like the melody in a music box, a half-forgotten dream.

Soon, I was making frequent trips out of the office during the day too. Sometimes I visited old haunts in search of new leads. Sometimes I just shot the breeze with Takahashi. There wasn't much conversation in him, but he was a good listener when I wanted to talk out a case and I always felt he understood my friendly intentions.

I was coming back from one of these jaunts when I saw Diamond City Security massing out front of the detective agency.

"Where's the fire?" I asked one of the guards, a nice kid named Danny Sullivan.

Danny wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "I'm sorry, Mr. Valentine. There's been an incident."

"An incident?" That sounded bad.

"In your office."

My mind flashed to poor Ellie. When I'd said goodbye to her, she'd sitting at her desk, buffing her nails, no doubt bored by the absence of new clients.

"Ellie – is she alright?"

I didn't wait for an answer. I rushed past him into the office before he could get in my way.

The place looked like it'd been hit by a mini-nuke – or one hell of a hurricane. File cabinets had been upended, their contents spewed across the floor. Ellie leaned against her toppled desk, talking to a police officer. The girl looked flustered, but she was all in one piece.

"Are you okay?"

She hurried over to meet me. "Nick, I – I'm so sorry. I tried to stop them -"

"It doesn't matter, kid. Office equipment can be replaced. You can't. If you're alright, I am too."

"These guys were looking for something. They kept asking where you kept the evidence and I told them: anything to be used in a trial doesn't stay with us, it goes to Security. They started ransacking the place and I ran for help."

My mind went back to the Gaines case and what Mrs. Gaines had said when we'd given her the Holotape - "Oh, I'll set him straight alright". What if she hadn't just used the evidence we'd collected to get out of her marriage? What if she'd decided to use it to get even with her no-good, cheating husband?

A dalliance with a ghoul was practically a rite of passage in Goodneighbour, but in Diamond City, it was an abomination, especially among the elite circles living in the Boxes. A scandal like that could ruin a person's reputation, spoil business opportunities and even spell banishment from the city proper, if the Mayor got wind of it and decided you were insufficiently invested in the proper Diamond City spirit. For an influential man like Gregory Gaines, all of that would be a hell of a lot to lose and I doubted he'd tolerate his wife holding blackmail material over his head.

"The people who did this - you get a good look at them?"

Ellie frowned, concentrating. "There were three of them. All men, I think. They were dressed like wastelanders, but they came off like soldiers. When they burst into the agency, my first thought was that they didn't seem like they belonged in Diamond City. They were wearing patrolman's sunglasses to cover their eyes."

Poor girl looked exhausted. I didn't want to push her any further, especially when I was almost certain the men she was describing were Gunners in the pay of Gregory Gaines.

"C'mon, Ellie. Time for you to go home and have a rest, I think. Take the day off tomorrow. The agency isn't going anywhere."

I escorted her back to the house she shared with her mother at the far end of the stadium. I rapped on the sheet metal door and Mrs. Perkins peered out, blinking behind her plastic-rimmed specs. Her eyes shifted from me to Ellie, her expression warming considerably, and she opened the door all the way.

"You're home early. Is everything okay?"

I figured it was my duty to offer up an explanation, especially since I'd wound up putting her kid in a messy situation. "There was an incid-"

"Mr. Valentine is giving me a couple days off," Ellie interrupted. "With pay. In recognition of all my hard work. Isn't that nice?" She turned, shooting me a look that said I wasn't to contradict her.

I guess Ellie worried that her mother would ban her from working at the agency altogether if she told the truth of the matter. Mrs. Perkins had been suspicious of me from the word 'go' and it'd taken a long time for us to get to even this uneasy peace, so I could understand Ellie omitting a few of the more crucial facts.

Her mother didn't seem to know what to make of this. "Well, isn't that nice." She glanced at me, clearly deliberating on what to say. Finally she settled on a simple "Thank you, Mr. Valentine", which was not the reaction I'd been bracing myself for on the walk over.

"Ellie has earned it and more," I said. "She's a good worker and she puts up with a lot. The detective business isn't always a walk in the park." Sometimes it was a bunch of goons busting in and trashing your office or getting locked in a cell in an underground Vault for three days straight, but I'd let Ellie break that news to her mother in her own time.

Once Mrs. Perkins had taken Ellie inside, I walked back to the ungodly mess my office had become.

I was surprised to find Nora waiting for me in front of the agency, like a present placed at my doorstep. The neon sign flashed over her face, pink light dancing over her cheeks and reflecting off her hair. I should have said something, but the sight of her made me so glad that words just evaporated and I wound up gazing at her like some fond idiot.

"Nick, I'm so sorry," she said. "What a shitty thing to happen."

Nora wrapped her arms around me, giving me a tight squeeze, and I was so surprised, I let out a chuckle.

Experimentally, I laced my arms around her waist, drawing her in a little closer. There was a warmth in the embrace that didn't just come from my circuitry or the heat of her body. I could hear her heart hammering against my chest and smell a faint, but lovely perfume wafting up from her hair. When she was eased back from the embrace, I was almost...disappointed.

"How did you get here?" I said. "I thought you were out on some very official business."

"I heard Travis talking about the break-in on the radio, so I had them teleport me back here."

Ah, so Nora had been at the Institute then. It bothered me to think of her there, surrounded by heartless bastards in white lab coats. No doubt if you pricked them, they'd bleed formaldehyde. The partner I knew didn't fit in with those people, however much her son tried to sell her on their twisted way of thinking.

"It's good to see you," I said, making the understatement of the year. "It's been one hell of a day."

We went into the office and surveyed the damage. It was worse than I remembered.

Nora shook her head, fuming. "You have any notion who's behind this?"

"Call it Synth's intuition, but the redoubtable Mr. Gaines is my best guess. Ellie described some hired goons who sounded an awful lot like Gunners to me."

She stooped down, plucked a cigarette butt from the ground, inspected it, then gave it a sniff. 

I made a face. "Hope you aren't planning on smoking that."

"This isn't your brand," she said. "MacCready has a taste for these."

"You've lost me. I mean, you're not suggesting our friendly merc pal had something to do with this?"

"No, not at all." Nora laughed off the notion. "But I think it confirms your suspicions about the Gunners. They give out monthly rations. Stimpacks, bandages, extra ammo...and cigarettes, just like these. Every time we raid a Gunners' hideout, Mac goes all shifty-eyed and tries to sneak every carton he can get his hands on."

It made sense, I suppose. "Hm. Nice catch. I like it when there's solid evidence to confirm a hunch. So, in that spirit, shall we go check in on the Gaines' household? See what we see?"

"No doubt we'll get an eyeful."

Ten minutes later, Nora knocked on the door of the Gaines' apartment. There was no answer.

She reached down, trying the doorknob, no doubt expecting the resistance of a lock. Instead, the door pushed open and she practically tumbled over the threshold.

We look around in astonishment. The place showed clear signs of a struggle. A vase had shattered, murky water pooling across the floor amid the stems of crushed hubflowers.

In the kitchen, we found Hadfield the robot butler lying face-down on the floor.

I crouched down beside his body and rolled him over. He looked worse for wear, poor guy.

"Do you think he's still operational?" Nora asked in a hushed tone.

"They dented his metal plating pretty good, but I don't think it'd be enough to wreck his operating system. Can't promise anything though."

I checked his fuel gauge. He was completely drained.

"Nora, you see any Mr. Handy fuel around here?"

"I'll look."

She came back a few minutes later, canister in hand. I poured some gas into Hadfield's fuel spout, then reset his systems. The robot wakened with aching slowness.

"Oh my," Hadfield said. "This is embarrassing. To be discovered sleeping on the job."

Nora smiled, her eyes glistening with relief. "Don't worry. It happens to the best of us."

"But where's the mistress?"

"We're curious about Mrs. Gaines' whereabouts as well," she said. "Did she say anything to you?"

"No, mum. Otherwise I would've been eager to accompany her."

"And Mr. Gaines?" I interjected. "Where does he spend most of his time?"

"On the road, of course. He is one of the most well-traveled gentlemen in the Commonwealth, I'm proud to declare. When he isn't engaged in business affairs or enjoying the warmth of the home fires here in beautiful Diamond City, then he can usually be found at Gaines Labs and Manufactory."

Interesting, very interesting, indeed. "Where would be that be located?"

"I couldn't say precisely, sir. You see, I've yet to visit the premises. Apparently, it's in South Boston, inside what used to be a high school? Most ingenious, if you ask me."

Nora was eyeing the 'bot with concern. He didn't seem to be all there. "Are you alright, Hadfield? Would you like to go somewhere?"

"Oh, certainly not, mum. Look at the mess this place has become. I simply must tidy it up before the master and mistress return."

It seemed a shame to leave Hadfield in that empty apartment, but he couldn't be convinced to abandon his post. I resolved to check in on him in a day or two to run a diagnostic. The guy had been slapped around pretty good and domestic units weren't meant to take that kind of beating.

By the time, Nora and I left the building, dusk had set in. The darkening sky had a greenish tinge, as if a radiation storm were rolling in from the coast. Nora gave a slight shiver, sniffing the air.

"The weather is taking a turn for the ugly," she said, "Want to wait it out at Home Base? It'll be more comfortable than at the agency."

I didn't dispute that. Nora's house in Diamond City was a cozy little nest, no two ways about it, and I couldn't think of any place better to hole up during a storm. If I'm giving you the straight goods, the idea of being alone with her, somewhere safe and private, sounded like a luxury in itself. It occurred to me that something might happen between us and the prospect sent a jolt of electricity zinging down my spine.

Usually, I liked to have a game plan, but for once, I wasn't sure how I was going to behave. Consulting with Old Nick's memories wasn't much help. He'd been your typical man equipped with regulation-issue human biology. He could suggest a couple lines to make a lady swoon and he'd embedded a few memories of getting between the sheets into my data banks, but he wasn't going to be any help when it came to being a 'bot. That was something I was going to have negotiate all on my own. More than anything, I was afraid Nora might not like me so much without the hat and the suit and the trench coat, once I was more Synth than detective. Or hell, what if I did something wrong, underestimated my strength and wound up hurting her? I tried to avoid contemplated that too much. What would happen would happen. Maybe she'd already given up on me. Maybe she'd spent this past week working any feelings she had for me out of her system. Maybe all this self-doubt and frustrated desire was for nothing at all, a tempest in a teapot.

Anyway, at least at Home Base, I wouldn't have to look at the mess that'd once been my office. Just thinking of the damage to the agency left me heartsick – even if I don't technically have a heart, just a pump pushing coolant. When we found Gregory Gaines, I had a feeling I was going to have a tough time holding my temper, what with the damage he'd done - not just to property, but to people and 'bots and the sense of security we'd all enjoyed at the agency, before his thugs came around and trashed the place. Gaines may have started out as just a no-good dirty bastard, but now I had him figured for a grade-A scumbag. Bringing him to justice would be a genuine service to the Commonwealth and I was real keen to get started.


	5. Sweet Reprieve

Back at her place, Nora fixed herself a meal while I played songs on the jukebox. Many of the tunes were familiar from the Pre-War days and brought back memories, some good, some bad, all wistful because they were of people long dead, never to return.

Nora brought me a glass of coolant on the rocks. "Here. Seems like it's been that kind of day."

I took a sip, leaning back into the sofa cushions. It was nice to take a load off after all the shoe leather I'd been burning lately. "Thanks. How's the Commonwealth been treating you?"

She sighed, spooning some tato casserole onto her plate. "It's complicated. I wish there was a way to talk matters out. Unfortunately, negotiation seems to be a lost art nowadays."

Once a lawyer, always a lawyer, I guess. Those types never met a problem they didn't want to talk into the ground. Old Nick had lost patience for their sophistry in the Pre-War world, especially after Jenny. Here in the Wasteland, though, an interest in conflict resolution was a refreshing perspective. Talking was in pretty short supply these days.

"Civility dies a quick death in tough times," I said. "People have lost trust in one another. They think the most pragmatic solution is spilling blood on the pavement. The thing is, violence just begets more distrust and then we get more violence again. It's a vicious cycle and we need to put the brakes on it."

Nora picked up a clipboard, wrote something down and handed it to me.

Her handwriting was jittery, but still legible: 'Have something to tell you, but it's possible this room is bugged. Act normal for now. When rad storm ends, go to roof – tell you what's really going on.'

I narrowed my eyes, glancing around the room for any of these supposed 'bugs'. The Institute had its grubby fingers in just about every pie in the Commonwealth, but I found it hard to believe her son would stoop to monitoring her house in Diamond City.

It occurred to me that maybe Nora had been spending a little too much time in the company of Tinker Tom, drinking his special brand of conspiracy-flavoured Nuka Cola. Nevertheless, the idea was just plausible enough that I was willing to humour her.

We passed the rest of the supper hour keeping the conversation light and innocuous, mostly about Mr. Zwicky and Edna's upcoming nuptials and what sort of gifts one might bring to a wedding between a schoolteacher and his instructional robot. Nora was happy at the prospect of the wedding and it was good to see her laughing. At last, the rad storm passed and she led me up to the rooftop hatch.

The night was cold and clear, a faint sea breeze billowing under the tails of my trenchcoat. Beneath us shone the fluorescent circus of Diamond City Market. Above us, innumerable stars gazed down, unfazed by the world the War had wrought.

"You must think I've gone mad," Nora said. "I promise, I have good reasons for being suspicious of this house. No tinfoil hats yet."

"You don't trust Shaun." I couldn't say I blamed her for that. Once upon a time, he might have been a good kid at heart, but that good kid had grown up to be a ruthless man, by all accounts, the kind of man who'd leave his mother to face the perils of the Wasteland all by her lonesome, just for the sake of some nutty experiment.

Nora sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees. Her expression was one of sorrow, the kind of loss Nick's memories had taught me to understand all too well.

"No. I don't trust him. He's become someone so different than what his father and I hoped he'd be. I love him because I brought him into this world, because he's my son - but I don't like the person he's chosen to be." She sighed. "I suppose I'm a bad mother for saying that."

I sat beside her, my shoulder brushing hers. Even that small measure of contact felt reassuring and instead of flinching away, she leaned toward me, making the touch more sustained.

"Seems to me you hardly had the chance to be a mother at all," I said. "Shaun became who he was all on his own."

"I kept hoping there was something I could say to change his mind, to make him see that the Institute's practices are wrong. But he doesn't want to hear it. I've even caught him in lies, defending things that are completely reprehensible."

"He's given his life to the place. Even tyrants want to think of themselves as saviours."

Nora looked at me sadly. Her eyes were wide, shining with all the light of the city below us. "And in the end, tyrants have to fall, don't they? Sic semper tyrannus and all that?"

I didn't know what to say to that. I couldn't pretend I wouldn't be glad to see the end of the Institute and its shadowy reign over the Commonwealth, even if it meant her kid would sink with the ship. "Eventually. Sooner rather than later, one hopes."

"Nick, I'm going to take down the Institute. I'm betraying my own son."

I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "I know it isn't easy. I'm sorry. If it counts for anything, I think you're doing the right thing."

She started to cry, her cheek pressed against my chest. It was a hell of a time to be without a fresh handkerchief. There were a bunch of them in my overturned desk back at the agency, but they weren't doing us any good over there. I held her close and didn't let go, hoping this might compensate. Again, there was a sweet perfume of her hair and the yielding warmth of her skin, and I remembered why all the songs on the radio were about love.

"Thanks," she said.

"My pleasure."

"If I'm not careful, all these tears are going to make you rust."

Nora drew back and smiled at me, even as a stray tear skidded down her cheek. I brushed it away with my good hand, the one that still had a semblance of humanity to it.

"It'll take more than a little crying to rust me." I said. "I missed you a lot, you know. You were away for a week, but it felt like a century to me."

"They say absence makes the heart grow fonder." There was a touch of reproach in her voice, as if she was remembering how I'd screwed things up at the Rex. She might still be willing to give me a chance, but a dame like her wasn't going to hold out forever.

"I'm already pretty damn fond." I tipped her chin up and softly kissed her mouth.

Nora gave a faint gasp but she didn't pull away. Instead, she leaned in, her lips melting into mine. When she breathed, it was as if I were taking in the same air, as if the rhythm of her heart knocking against my chest were my own too.

She loosened the knot of my tie, her fingers straying below my collar. "Shall we take this inside?"

I nodded solemnly, a mix of anticipation and nerves thrumming through my systems. It'd been so long, another lifetime ago, in a different body. I was afraid, more afraid than I'd ever been going into a fight or cleaning up the scum of the Commonwealth.

Mind you, the Institute had endowed me with all the necessary hardware, something I was grateful for, even if I didn't fully understand the reasoning behind it. Maybe they'd been feeling charitable and realized it might be psychologically damaging for a fellow to have all the memories of a man and not all the accompanying parts. Perhaps they'd just wanted to take 'anatomically accurate' as far it could go. Either way, I was equipped for amorous adventures, but before now, I'd never trusted any dame enough to risk indulging. After all, for all the anatomical accuracy, your typical man wasn't coated in peeling rubber, with a titanium frame in place of bones.

Nora undressed under the lamplight, revealing smooth skin and breasts rounded by shadow. She shook off her ripped jeans, leaving them crumpled on the floor, then slipped off her panties. Desire surged through me, nearly knocking me off my feet. I stroked my good hand over her bare skin, so sensitive that it seemed to tremble under my fingertips.

"You're beautiful," I said. "Don't know what you want with this ugly old mug."

Nora leaned forward, pulling off my trench coat. It slid to the floor with an approving whisper.

"I adore this mug. I don't think you know how much, but I'm going to try to show you."

She caressed my face, kissing my lips, the furrow between my mouth and chin, the side of my jaw where some of the rubber had peeled away. Her fingers tugged at my shirt, slipping off the noose of my tie and undoing button after button with a determination that left no doubt that she wanted me stripped bare.

"Just don't expect me to look...human." I sounded more defensive than I intended, more worried than I ought.

She kissed my chest, her fingers running down my waist and locking onto my belt buckle."I want you, Nick. That's all I could ever hope for."

Kneeling down, she pried open my belt and my trousers slipped to the floor. I stood naked before her, under the harsh scrutiny of the lamplight.

Nora looked up at me with an impish grin. "Well, that settles the question of 'Boxers vs. Briefs'. A straight-arrow like you – I never took you for a commando sort of guy."

I chuckled. I wore clothes for modesty's sake and to look like a detective, but underthings had always seemed like a waste of time. "Nice to know I can still surprise you."

Nora turned, slinking into bed. She gazed at me, resting on her hand on her cheek, a cascade of hair tumbling seductively over the right side of her face. "You're just one surprise after another, Valentine. Now come to bed, will you?"

I climbed into bed with her and well, suffice it to say, all the surprises were the good kind. When she put her hands on me, my body answered and all the responses were a resounding yes. I was careful with her at first, getting the lay of the land, so to speak, but feeling her hips writhing underneath me and hearing her sigh, and later, moan, provided ample encouragement. Part of me still wondered if this interlude was just some glorious glitch in my processing unit and I'd come back to in the Memory Den in a few hours, my head buzzing. It was one incredible trip, pleasing her and taking my pleasure in her too, such a dizzying array of sensations that my systems overloaded, and for an instant, my visual receptors were flecked with pixels of green and gold.

After, as Nora slept, I listened to the comforting rhythm of her breathing and felt the flutter of her pulse just beneath her skin. I imagined what it would be like to hold her like this every night. It was the happiest vigil I'd ever kept and it was all my own, not a memory of Nick's from a world gone to ashes, but something that was just for me. I'd encrypt this file and bury it deep in my hard drive, where I'd always be able to come back to it so long as I functioned – and maybe even after that it would remain, a trace of what I'd been, of what she'd given me. I could have stayed there forever, but soon, duty would call us both back to ourselves and it wasn't in my programming to ignore the suffering of others. I knew this idyll was a sweet reprieve from the trouble that was sure to find us, gathering like a rad storm on the horizon.


	6. Terminal

Daylight seeped into the house, coming in through the boards of the roof and walls. Her face dawned for me again and I was struck by how exposed we were to each other. I'd never bared so much of myself to anyone, at least not in this lifetime.

"Good morning, Valentine." Nora made my name sound like an endearment. She plucked up my hat from the floor and placed it awkwardly atop my head. "You know when I like you best?"

I played along. "No, when?"

"When you're wearing this hat," she said. "Just the hat."

For experiment's sake, I put the hat on her head, then examined the overall effect, which was plenty enticing. "Who would've thunk? It works for you, too."

I was tempted to suggest we linger in bed for a while longer, but it would be a mistake to ignore the ticking clock on the Gaines case, which was now looking like a kidnapping, even a homicide. After a little prep, we set out for South Boston High School, where Gaines was supposed to have set up his lair.

Old Nick's memories of Southie High informed me it'd been a tough school long before the joint had fallen half to pieces. In the Pre-War days, the place had been notorious for churning out low-level chems runners and baby-faced gangsters, kids who usually wound up in prison or in a body bag before they made their 21st birthdays. There was a lot of ugly history here and the War hadn't improved matters. The exterior walls had caved in on the north side of the building, exposing rows of rotting desks and rusted chairs. Charred books littered the floors, a reminder of the sad state of knowledge nowadays.

We circled around the back of the building and found a steel door in relatively good condition. Nora pointed out a scattering of mines circling entrance and a laser turret mounted over the threshold.

"Somebody means business," I said.

Nora nodded, her manner all business now. "I'll disarm the mines, if you manage the turret."

With no terminal in sight, I had to resort to brute force to take care of the turret. Two shots managed to put the thing out of commission. In the meantime, Nora removed the mines without blowing either of us up, which was a step in the right direction.

After we'd secured the area, Nora stooped down, picking the lock on the door with a bobby pin. No matter how many times I witnessed this procedure, it never stopped being impressive, like watching a conductor at the Boston Philharmonic in the old days, when there'd been orchestras and musical fellas with batons. When we had more free time on our hands, I'd have to talk Nora into giving me a lesson or two in this lock-picking business. I'd always been a natural when it came to hacking terminals, but opening genuine locks on real doors was never my forte and it was damn shame. It'd seemed like a skill a PI ought to have stowed away for a rainy day.

It took Nora a few tries, but after some adjustments and re-adjustments, she stepped back and cracking the door open with a look that was half-triumph, half-relief. She edged forward and peered through the opening.

"There's at least one other turret in the hall. I spotted a door frame about seven meters ahead, so let's head for cover there."

I nodded my understanding. I'd ensure she made it to cover before I'd follow her out. My metal frame did a better job of deflecting bullets than her best ballistic-weave. Last night, I'd seen firsthand how soft and entirely vulnerable her skin was under that armour.

Nora made it to the door frame and I pressed in close behind her, a barrage of bullets setting the hallway alight. With that sort of welcome, I was surprised to see her round the corner and sprint past the turret into a nearby room.

"What the hell are you -?" My voice came louder than I intended, mostly because I didn't like seeing her take risks. It might have been part of the game, this crazy job we'd signed up for, but past history told me that the people I cared about most were the ones most likely to get hurt. I didn't want history to repeat itself.

"There's a terminal," Nora said. "Stay there. I'll deactivate the systems."

"Be careful."

Nora's answer came from the other room. Already, I could hear her fingers playing over the keyboard, initiating a manual override."Relax, Nick. As you know, I'm pretty good at charming machines."

It was the rare machine that didn't yield to her touch – I ought to know, what with the pleasures of last night still clouding my thoughts. Tap, tap, tap, the sound of keys surrendering under her fingertips, lines of code materializing on the black screen like forbidden magic.

I smiled, my worry easing a jot. "Don't be too charming now. A 'bot might get jealous."

Nora laughed. "I promise you, my relationship with security terminals is strictly platonic. Anyway, I promise -" Her voice trailed off.

"You okay?"

Frantic tapping at the keyboard. "Um, maybe not. Just wait..."

"Nora, that isn't funny."

"It's not meant to be."

"You need me over there?"

"I...this system has a fail-safe mode. Oh...shit." The sound of her hand slamming down on the keyboard. An alarm screamed overhead and red lights flooded the corridors.

Nora's face appeared at the door, ashen with worry, then flushed under the pulsing lights."I'm so sorry. I screwed up. A system this sophisticated, I should've known even the back doors would be guarded."

I wanted to tell her not to worry, that my only concern keeping her safe and at my side, but then a Securitron busted down the door at the end of the hall. There were Gunners backing up the 'bot. Behind them, what looked to be a lab, a flock of chem cookers raced around in haz mat suits like headless chickens.

The Securitron barrelled towards us. Nora darted across the hall, tossing a grenade at it as she dashed by.

The hall shook with the blast and for a moment, our attackers were obscured behind a wall of smoke and flames. I fired my gun into the haze and a body fell forward, a burned Gunner. The Securitron rolled over the corpse in its advance, blasting in all directions.

I had to beat a swift retreat to stay out of the 'bot's range, taking shelter behind a ruined desk. Ahead of me, I saw Nora leaning out of cover just long even to sting the Securitron with a few bullets, before she ducked back into the shadows again.

I dig deep into my pack, my hand closing around a frag grenade. "Get down!" I hollered to Nora, then pulled the pin and lobbed the damn thing. Another earth-shaking explosion, the air sizzling with heat, then roiling with smoke and centuries-old dust.

The Securitron was a charred shell, but still, it clanked forward, its programming relentless. The surviving Gunners looked wary of its meltdown protocol, but they didn't back off fast enough. Nora rushed towards me, plugging the robot with just a few more shots before its core erupted into a

nuclear inferno.

She dived forward and I caught her in my arms, toppling backwards onto the broken linoleum floor. Part of the ceiling collapsed, walls crumbling on either side. I gripped her close to my chest, hoping my body would cushion her fall. Soot clouded my sensors.

"Nick?" Nora was crouched beside me, cradling my head in her arms "I'm sorry. Shit. I'll make it up to you..."

I sat up and gave my head a good shake. "When we're out of this mess, you can kiss it better, sweetheart. Otherwise, all's forgiven."

Nora smiled ruefully, offering a hand to help me up. When she was upset with herself, there was something fragile, almost childish about her, as if she could hear a voice still ringing in her ears, berating her for the mistake. I wondered if somebody had been harsh to her, once upon a time. Maybe she was just too hard on herself in general. Nobody could be perfect and when it came to helping the Commonwealth, she was doing more than most folks I could think of.

The east end of the hall had caved in, burying the remaining Gunners by all appearances, so we headed west, creeping through a supply room and what looked like a break area. We turned a corner and found a set of double doors that looked distinctly promising.

Nora examined the lock, then broke out her bobby pins. She cracked this one in a single try and it seemed to restore some of her lost confidence. Grinning, she eased the door open - only to be greeted with a snub-nosed .44 pressed to her temple.

Nora froze and I followed suit, conscious that we'd reached a dangerous impasse. Thankfully, she knew better than to struggle when a gun was at the side of her head. Her brows knit together in concentration, but she didn't move a muscle more than she had to.

I leveled my gun at the door, waiting for her assailant to show himself. It opened wider and I saw Gregory Gaines' plug-ugly face behind the gun.


	7. How It Shakes Out

Gaines grabbed Nora by the scruff of the neck and pulled her shoulder-to-shoulder with him. His little ghoulfriend, Delilah, looked on, a smirk spreading across her withered face.

"Those are the ones who came to the Rex," she said. "She claimed to be a Gunner. They set me up."

Darting a glance around the room, I spotted Mrs. Gaines tied up in a chair in the corner, a gag in her mouth. She'd taken a hit or two from the looks of her, but her eyes were open and she seemed conscious of her surroundings. Good signs, both of 'em.

Mr. Gaines eyed me, his mouth turning up at the corners as if he were reminded of a joke he'd once heard. He thought he was mighty important, waving his little pistol around. Once again, I felt an overpowering urge to sock him one in the jaw.

"Put the gun down, Valentine, or your girlfriend gets it."

It was a line straight out of a bad detective serial. I had the feeling he'd had been listened to one too many of those Silver Shroud episodes on the radio. Old Nick's mother always told him not to overdo it on stuff like that or he'd end up rotting his brain. Could be that Ma Valentine had a point.

"That's mighty unoriginal, Mr. Gaines," I said. "I always hope for a better class of criminal, but as it stands, you've left me sorely disappointed. Now, if you wanted to give me a pleasant surprise, you could let go of my partner and have a chat with us, like civilized people."

"We can talk, sure," Gaines said. "There's plenty I plan on getting out of you. But my gun is staying right here."

He tapped the pistol against Nora's temple as if daring her to twitch and give him a reason to shoot her.

Nora's eyes were wide, glittering with fear, but her mouth was a grim, determined line. Violence wasn't foreign to her, nor a mysterious thing that happened to other people, the way it been for poor Jenny Lands, who'd never heard a gun fired until the day one of Eddie Winter's goons shot her in the back.

Nora recognized the sound of bullets ripping through the air. She knew how they sheared through flesh, ricocheted off bone. She'd become accustomed to dispensing death and to the possibility it might claim her too, much sooner than she'd like. She wasn't a complete innocent, and maybe that blunted her fear, but it didn't make me any less terrified at the prospect of losing my partner, my friend, my best girl.

"Don't listen to him, Nick," she said. "You do what you have to do. No regrets."

"Shut up." Gaines jabbed the gun deeper into the side of her head.

Rage mounted inside me, the kind of anger I hadn't felt since I was staring down Eddie Winter, hearing his same smug voice coming out of that dried-up ghoul body. The anger had me worried too, because I needed to be careful. If I didn't keep a cool head, Nora might wind up going short one altogether. I wouldn't be able to live with a mistake like that. I knew that for certain.

I put my hands up, lifting my gun in a clear show of surrender.

"Put the weapon on the ground," Gaines said. "Slowly."

I did as I was told. It wasn't the first time some scumbag had gotten the drop on me, and if I made it through, I had no doubt that it wouldn't be the last. Gaines wasn't even a particularly exceptional breed of scumbag – just some lowlife who'd had the good fortune to be standing in the right place at the right time.

Gaines stared at the laser pistol, looking twitchy. "Too close. Move it away."

I prodded the pistol forward with my foot until he was satisfied I wasn't going to make a lunge for it.

"Ha, you really are a piece of work, aren't you?" Gaines said. "Nick Valentine, Synth detective. What a joke. If you'd minded your own business and quit snooping around in everyone else's, we could have avoided this unfortunate situation. Now where's the Holotape?"

A notion was forming in my head. It wasn't complicated enough to be called a plan, but it was the only way forward I could see.

"I've got it right here." I patted the pocket of my trench coat.

"Hand it over."

"First, you let Nora go," I said. "If you need somebody to blame, I'm the one you're looking for."

"That's not true," Nora said. "You didn't even want the case. I talked you into -"

"She lied to me." Delilah just had to pipe in and stir up trouble. "She said she was a Gunner -"

"I'm the one," I interrupted the ghoul before she could get Gaines any more riled up. "It's my name on the door of the agency. I'm the one who takes responsibility. Now let her go."

Gaines turned his face slightly, eyeing Nora from the corner of his eye. "Sure, I'll let her go." He shoved her on the ground and shot her in the leg.

Nora gasped, clutching her thigh. Blood bloomed through the thick fabric of her pants. She dragged herself towards cover, a long red trail streaking behind her.

I glowered at Gaines. "You dirty son of a bitch."

"Give me the Holotape, Valentine."

I reached into my pocket as if to get it. Instead, my hand closed around my pack of cigarettes. If I kept it close enough to my palm, it had the right size, shape and coloration to be mistaken for a Holotape. I drew it out and as Gaines' eyes turned towards it, I bolted towards him.

As I hurtled into him, his gun went off, bullets careening past me to burn at my coattails. My fist hit

Gaines' jaw with a satisfying crack and his head whipped back, bloody spittle flying from his chops.

The pistol came loose from his hand and went spinning through the air as I whacked him again.

"You shot my girl, you bastard. That's against..." I clocked him with the back of my hand, "the goddamn rules."

He cowered on the ground, a whimpering mess, blood spurting out his nose and spit dribbling down his chin. I thought it was a good look for him.

"Please, Mr. Valentine, don't...don't murder me. Around Diamond City, people say you're a nice guy..."

I narrowed my eyes. "I'm nice. Not stupid."

Grabbing his arms, I wrangled his wrists together and slapped the cuffs on, nice and tight.

"I'm a believer in law and order, Mr. Gaines. So I'm not going to kill you, not personally, anyway. You've got a date with Diamond City Security. They have a bone to pick with you about breaking and entering, menacing, assault, kidnapping and attempted murder. From what I hear, they like their summary executions real well, but maybe you'll get lucky. Could be they'll just confiscate all your weapons and send you off to the Fens to live with the Muties."

"If they send you away, you can live with me in Goodneighbour," Delilah said. "We can finally be together."

"Together? What sort of chems are you on?" Gaines sneered at the ghoul. "You ruined me. I can't believe I'm going to lose it all, and for what? Some rotten bitch of a corpse."

Delilah stared at him with a stricken expression. With those words, it was as he'd snatched away all hope that remained in her. I saw her bow to the ground, as her knees had buckled. What I didn't see was Gaines' .44, which she'd scooped up from the floor.

"You think I'm a corpse, loverboy? Well, I think you are!" Delilah fired three times and her aim was remarkably good, not that it had to be at this distance.

The first shot hit Gaines in the gut and he gave a loud groan, reaching down to clutch at his innards. The second and third shots drove deep into his chest and knocked him onto his back. A second later, Mr. Gregory Gaines was a corpse, just as his mistress had promised.

Delilah dropped the gun and hightailed it out there. Frankly, I wasn't inclined to gave chase, with Nora on the floor bleeding. Some folks manage to evade the long arm of the law for a while, but justice has a way of getting to them too eventually. It could be Delilah's punishment was herself, the ugliness inside that outdid any problems with her complexion.

By the time, I arrived at her side, Nora had injected herself with a stimpack and was bandaging up the wound as best she could with a roll of gauze.

"Nick, thank you."

I stroked a hand through her hair. "Are you okay?"

"The bullet didn't hit an artery. I think I'm in the clear."

"You sure?"

Nora nodded. "It's nothing a doctor's visit and half a bottle of whiskey won't fix." She pushed herself onto her knees, gritting her teeth together through a twinge of pain. "Be a darling and help me up, will you?"

"With pleasure." I let her use my shoulder as a grip and she scrabbled up to her feet.

"I may need to lean on you, handsome." Under the tone of good humour, she sounded pained and weary. It'd been a busy couple of days.

"Lean away." I didn't mind one bit. It was kind of nice, getting to be her hero for once.

She leaned against my shoulder, no burden at all. "I guess I finally got to do the damsel in distress routine this time."

"Everyone has their hour of need," I said. "Just let's not make a habit of it, alright? I ain't too keen on seeing you get hurt."

"Yeah, getting shot doesn't exactly set my heart aflutter either."

We untied Margery Gaines, now the happiest widow in the Commonwealth. Not only had she escaped with her life, but she'd also managed to avoid a messy Diamond City divorce.

"So, Mrs. Gaines, it looks like you're no longer a Mrs," I remarked. I figured I could get away with it, since the lady didn't seem too upset with this conclusion.

"Good riddance," she muttered, fluffing her hair. She seemed more invested in keeping up standards of grooming than in her husband's corpse on the floor.

"Your attempt to blackmail your husband could've had some grave consequences," I informed her. "As it stands, your antics put our lives at risk and sent thugs rummaging through my office."

"With the money I'll inherit from Gregory, I can afford to pay for a few dented desk fans. Send me the bill."

"You don't seem to understand me here. Your behaviour was reckless. Criminal, even."

"Can you prove that, Mr. Valentine? I don't see any evidence to back up those claims."

I looked at Nora, hoping she could come up with a way to dispute this. The look she gave me in reply said we were out of luck, at least for the moment. I sighed, feeling more resigned than angry. All's well that ends well, I suppose, or so the Bard would have us believe.

"Out of curiosity, where is the Holotape?" Nora asked.

"My lover has it for safekeeping." Margery Gaines paused, letting us take in the full irony of the situation.

"Your lover." Nora raised an eyebrow. "Really."

Mrs. Gaines' expression could have frozen beer. "Yes. I don't intend to tell you his name. Unlike my dear departed husband, I've always been very discreet."

This is a classic example of why I can't stand marital cases. The human heart can be one dark and dismal place. Love ought to help, but too often people get it twisted around. They rip apart the pretty roses and keep the thorns to whip each other's backs. Under other circumstances, I don't think I would've risked a crazy thing like falling in love, no sir, no way, not if I didn't have a damn good partner backing me up.

Nora folded her arms over her chest. "You're going to have ownership of a chems factory now, Mrs. Gaines. What precisely do you intend to do with it?"

The lady dismissed the question with a swipe of her well-manicured hand. "Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to pump out Jet and Psycho in the profligate way my hubby did. That would be...disreputable, and frankly, bad for the Chem-I-Care brand. We'll be... merging assets shortly, I expect."

Nora looked at me and mouthed, "Her lover is...Sol?!"

I shrugged, although I'd had the same notion. Some folks like ghouls, some folks like Synths, some folks like bearded beatniks who deal chems. There really is no accounting for taste. I guess I ought to thankful for that, all things considered.

This bloody debacle had worked out very nicely for Mrs. Gaines and I had more than a sneaking suspicion we'd been played, but for the time being, there wasn't much we could do aside from escort her back to Diamond City. My first priority was getting Nora into the care of the good Dr. Sun to extract that bullet from her leg. My second priority was a stiff drink and a cigarette.

I visited Nora after the operation, once I'd calmed down enough to be sure I wouldn't be clucking over her like a mother hen. She was resting on a cot in the back of the surgery, two pillows propped up behind her back.

When she caught sight of me, she smiled. "Hey sailor. Sit yourself down and stay a while."

"You're looking more like yourself." When I'd left her with the doctor, she'd been looking wiped-out from the blood loss. Now there was life back in her face and a playful glint in her eyes.

"I'll take that as compliment."

"It was intended to be."

She paused, glancing down at her hands on the sheet. Her fingers toyed with the rumpled cotton. "Nick, I've got a question for you."

"Well, shoot."

"Back there, when you were taking down Gaines, you called me your girl," she said. "Do you really think of me that way?"

"Sure, I do. I wouldn't have..." I lowered my voice slightly in case Dr. Sun was within hearing, "...made love to you if I didn't think of you like that. Do you mind it? Me calling you my girl?"

Nora slid forward onto her knees and crawled across the mattress, closing the distance between us. Reaching up, she took my face between her hands. "Nick Valentine, as I see it, you're the best man in the Commonwealth. If you want me, then I'm your girl."

She kissed me, as if to seal the bargain. Even after our lips parted, I held her close, burying my face in her neck and losing myself in the feel of her. I was looking forward to taking her home and starting a new life, as partners in every sense of the word.

I was under no illusions that it'd be easy for us in Diamond City, where anti-Synth prejudices still ran high. It'd taken a solid decade just for me to earn folk's trust and even now, there were still ones like Myrna who treated me like I was a piece of furniture or worse, like I was an Institute spy trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

Others here in the City had come to tolerate my presence, sure, even to appreciate me as a touch of local colour, I still wasn't sure they'd accept me entering into a relationship with a human woman. To do that, they'd have to recognize the man buried under the rubber and the metal, one whose hopes and desires went far beyond merely being useful to them. It'd take time, but being in love makes a fellow hopeful. I had big plans for Nora and me, plans of the kind you could build a future around.

Two weeks later, Mr. Zwicky and Edna were married in the Diamond City Non-Denominational Chapel. It was a simple ceremony, attended by a few notable locals, current and former students, and of course, the press, in the form of Piper and Nat. Earlier in the day, some other self-righteous so-and-sos had made a show of protesting the match outside the Schoolhouse. Luckily, the resistance died down pretty quick when it became clear no one else wanted to be stuck with the task of teaching Diamond City's anklebiters their reading, writing and 'rithmitic. By virtue of their indispensability, Edna and Zwicky were free to do as they pleased and I was damned glad to see it.

Nora was my date for the festivities, though we tried to play it low-key, so as not to steal the spotlight from the happy bride and groom. She dressed up special for the occasion, in a blue sequin dress that was enough to make a fellow go cross-eyed. In the interest of making a good impression, I wore a suit jacket to the chapel, rather than my ragged old trench coat. Of course, nobody was going to rob me of my hat. Requesting that I go without my fedora was like asking some poor sot to take a walk minus his head.

"I think you look dashing," Nora said, adjusting my tie. She gave me a shy kiss on the cheek. I did her one better, with one on the lips.

A glance in the mirror told me I looked like a mechanical coroner and a bit of a dopey one at that, but I put on a smile anyway. My girl was pretty enough for the both of us.

We watched the ceremony from the back pew of the church. It wasn't the best view in the house, but it meant I could reach down and take Nora's hand during the vows. She beamed and gave my fingers a squeeze, going a little misty-eyed. I smiled, glad I'd come prepared. I pulled out one of my specially embroidered handkerchiefs and dabbed the tears from her eyes – a nice touch, if I say so myself.


End file.
